GlobalNet21, an organization facilitating discussion on current issues, organized this event. A stimulating discussion took place in the House of Commons’ Grand Committee Room, and featured three prominent speakers who all offered individual perspectives on the issue: Conservative MP Nick de Bois, who was responsible for hosting the event; Ruth Fox, the Director of the Parliament and Government Programme at the Hansard Society; and Peter Facey, the founding Director of Unlock Democracy. The Hansard Society (an independent organisation responsible for political research, rather than the Hansard who record parliamentary business, have recently conducted several studies on the new intake of MPs, of whom Nick de Bois is one. The talk revealed some innovative ideas to improve relations between parliament and the general public, though stopped short of initiating a revolution of the current political system.

The first to speak was Nick de Bois, who was disarmingly open about his disillusionment with British politics, and possible motivation for holding the event: ‘You may have noticed I’m on the back benches.’ He described the difficulties of getting one’s opinion across to a Cabinet member even as a member of parliament, and claimed the first six months of his time in office he had believed entering the profession was one of the ‘biggest mistakes of my life.’ Perhaps considering the struggle he had to secure his seat in the North London borough of Enfield (he ran three times before being elected) this is understandable. It also might have something to do with the primacy he puts on his constituents’ interests as opposed to the official party line.

He describes a recent attempt by the Coalition to introduce mandatory prison sentences for knife crime, which he campaigned against. Having failed to persuade the members of the relevant Select Committee to repeal the legislation via the orthodox routes of the lobby (an audience with the legislator behind a locked door), or a petition (despite securing 14-15 MPs’ signatures), he admits to using ‘street tactics’ to get his point across. Not only did he leak the story to the Sun newspaper, he managed to catch the Select Committee Chairman, on camera, declaring he was still open to changes in the legislation. Pushing for another audience in front of the media, this time he was successful. But perhaps he was simply lucky: much of the time, Nick declared, he felt he was simply ‘voting fodder for a government’s agenda’.

Next up was Ruth of the Hansard Society, who laid out the findings of the studies she had conducted into new MPs in their first 6 months of office. While it seemed the public wanted their political representatives to be ‘more like us’ in that they understood and cared about day-to-day issues, she believed the range of services they demanded were slightly unrealistic: legislation, ‘local dignitary’ duties opening schools and public buildings, and providing an impeccable appearance, moral example and demeanour at all times. Hansard had discovered that, far from being out of touch with local politics, ‘MPs do more constituency-focused work than any other generation:’ one-third of their time is spent in their constituency, and two-thirds in Westminster; of this one-quarter of their time in the office is spent on constituency case-work. Despite this fact, she feels – and Nick de Bois agrees – they are less well regarded than the previous generation of MPs. Nick described an article in the Mail during the expenses scandal ‘exposing’ him as having claimed the highest payment for travel expenses – in his defence, the sixty pounds he spent on a taxi home from Westminster did save him taking a night-bus home at 2.00 am.

Ruth also believes that MPs are trained in the wrong areas, with public relations skills prioritised over legal or other specialised knowledge. This has become part of the political culture, with sixty-four percent of those surveyed aspiring to a ministerial position, while only forty-nine percent wanted more training and development, which would obviously be necessary to oversee specific sectors or become Select Committee members. She also feels the nature of the parliamentary game of one-upmanship, with its ‘partisan criticism of each other all the time,’ contributes to a general erosion of trust both within parliament and, by proxy, of public trust in them. It was later pointed out that in Denmark it is not permitted for any politician to make personal slights or insults about another – something it was widely considered would be worth introducing here. At least we can be sure that MPs are able now to vote independently of their Chief Whips and party’s agenda: Philip Cowley, of Nottingham University, found that sixty-nine percent of new Conservatives had rebelled, and twenty-eight percent of Lib Dems, which she claims is ‘more rebellions than at any other time in the past.’

This was slightly contradicted by the next speaker Peter Facey, who portrayed a picture of a government in fairly tight control: when voting on legislation, the government apparently lost the House of Commons vote only five to six times. He puts the decline of the political system down to the erosion of local support for individual parties. He cites the declining membership of the Liberal Democratic party, from 100 000 in the 1990s, to around 60 000 today, and declares the pattern to be similar for the other major parties. Thus government is becoming increasingly centralised – contrary to David Cameron’s widely trumpeted ‘Big Society’ project. He is strongly critical of the House of Lords’ repeal of part of the Localism Act, which had previously enabled local residents of a constituency, if support of an issue totalled five percent of its population, to bring that issue to referendum (though they still have some say over tax spending.)

While he believes the MP’s role is to act as ‘gatekeeper’ between the individual and the state, they cannot fulfil this purpose without local party support and funding, and with enough feedback from the public on the success of their policies. Under the current system, he stresses, ‘the reality is your MP is not there to agree with you,’ but to make their own informed decisions on your behalf. ‘MPs are essential – but we have to help them,’ with more understanding and also more outreach projects from the government. He is campaigning himself for a law which will mean that any petition containing more than 2 million public signatures will automatically bring an issue to national referendum or legislation.

After each of the experts had had their way the floor was opened for questions: Senake wanted to know if it would be beneficial to have more transparency in the system, utilising modern technology, or ‘systems that actually make things happen,’ to quantify MPs’ productivity. Nick pointed out that it is already required for local councils to publish details of any expenditure above £5000, which Peter felt had led to an explosion of largely useless information. There is now ‘so much data that is out there that you can hide things in plain sight.’ He felt that, more important than what MPs were spending their lunch money on, was to know how they felt on the issues that concerned their constituents, on which they were notoriously hard to pin down. Many did not even bother to register their opinions on barometers like the EDM, a measure of gauging politicians’ opinion before a question was formally raised. Nick, however, believed that when MPs did make up their mind and vote on an issue – the only real way of determining whether they had acted in the interests of their constituents and the public – there were means in place to monitor them. He mentioned independent website ‘theyworkforyou.com’, which displayed how each borough’s local MP voted.

Two other proposals were, first, the total abolition of political parties – with each candidate standing as an independent – and greater devolution of powers to local government. On the first issue, it was believed to be a beautiful ideal but unrealistic in principle. Nick, who had working knowledge of the system, believed that working within a party platform provided ‘clarity and leadership.’ He described how contacts from the Kuwaiti government, whose form of parliamentary representation is formed entirely of independents, often confessed to him that they ‘never get anything done.’ On the second, he was also averse to reform of the current system, which he limited to giving local government more power to encourage small businesses, and possibly a degree of autonomy over local income tax. Peter claimed this was not nearly far enough; that under the current system ‘we do not have local government.’ The autonomy of councillors over key issues like local policing and healthcare is nonexistent. In Birmingham the local government cannot even make decisions about how the buses run – a phenomenon which has given rise to the phrase ‘postcode lottery,’ whereby councils’ powers vary according to their luck in regional geography.

The question seems to come down to whether the problems with the system are down to voter and local government apathy, or whether voter and local government apathy are due to the current system. While Ruth claimed that, of those surveyed, only 50% of the public wanted more of a say in national decision-making, and 55% in local, this may be due to a sense of general disillusionment and disenfranchisement. Global21 organizer Francis Sealey pointed out that in Sweden, which has Europe’s highest electoral turnout, 80% of expenditure comes from local income tax, over which residents have a much higher level of control and which acts to engender more of a sense of local community. Perhaps the thing Britain needs first, though, is a greater understanding of the sheer range of duties an MP is required to fulfil. And, unlike a regular job, the ultimate assessment of their performance – re-election – has ‘almost nothing to do with achievement,’ at least on a personal level. They are judged also on the achievements of their party, and on socio-economic circumstances, and media hype, over which they have virtually no control.

A21 are a group set up by Christine Caine, which sets up rescue and rehabilitation centres for the victims of the sex trade, and pays for legal action against human traffickers. Yesterday she explained why she became inspired to embark on this mission at the Hillsong church service – held at the Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, also home to the ‘We Will Rock You’ musical.

Because the speech took place as part of a heavily marketed religious organisation, it was dogged by biblical extracts and an emphatic, preaching style of addressing the audience. The ‘Good Samaritan’ parable was evoked, and she tried to impress upon us its continuing relevance – of not ignoring the outside world and its problems, but taking action and responsibility. Because that, she asserted, is the role of the church in society, not as a secluded Bible study group with endless treatises on ‘The coming of the Beast.’ She also pointed to the selfish motives of many who claim themselves to be dedicated christians, in both the limits of their empathy (‘Christine, my parishioners think they’re sympathetic people when they’re able to cry at a sad movie.’) and the prosaic self-centred nature of the subject of their prayers. This was also evident earlier in the service, where about half of the personal prayers offered seemed to be requests for God to find them a job.

In addition to this slightly bullish evangelist style of address – which was no doubt effective and necessary – Christine also offered several personal reasons why she had adopted this particular campaign. Having had personal experience of the social services in Australia, as a result of some unspecified difficulties in her home environment, she could sympathise with the plight of the women in question. As a mother herself, she had a further reason to empathise. She described how, when arriving at a Greek airport and surveying the missing persons board during the height of the hunt for little Madeleine McCann, she was astonished by the number of other women and children also lost and presumed missing. One had the same name as her daughter, which brought home to her how losses and problems which seem distant can in fact happen to anyone, and indeed have happened, to someone else’s daughter or sister.

Greece is in fact the European centre of the ‘sex slave’ trade. Several films played provided visual impact of the phenomena. One featured a girl leading dual lives – one successful, graduating from college and attending her leaving prom, coming to terms with her alter ego, the girl she could have been had she been kidnapped and subjected to violent sexual abuse in a foreign country. The message is obviously that this could happen to anyone. It is, though, more likely to happen in Eastern Europe where the mafia run this lucrative business with utter ruthlessness. The Ukraine is the most popular sourcing ground for prostitutes, partly because chronic unemployment and poverty (75% of unemployed are women) propagate the dream of making a new life abroad, in the richer EU countries. This is one of the ways in which the deeply rooted criminal organisations – and petty criminals – trick young girls into giving away their papers and intimate family details.

When they arrive in their destination country they usually do not speak the language and have given away their formal means of identification to those who claimed to be processing them for Visas or job applications. Those who run the rings often use these details as blackmail to prevent the girls going to the police – because they might harm their relatives back home. Another popular trick is apparently to dress as policemen while undergoing the ‘hazing’ (grossly ineffective term of phrase) process and after, to persuade the victims that there is no point trying to escape because all the authorities are in collaboration with their persecutors.

It is very sad that there is a demand at all for this kind of disgusting and degrading service, but by tackling the roots of the cause – the heartless monsters who profit from this modern slave trade – A21 are providing a valuable service. Sex trafficking is apparently the fastest-growing crime in Europe, if not the world, a terrifying statistic. Some of the stories actually sound like they have come from the pages of a history book, with victims occasionally transported en masse, like cattle, in the cargo holds of ships, many of them dying as a result of the appalling conditions. It is wonderful that someone is tackling the taboos surrounding this issue and bringing it into the open, as well as helping rehabilitate the victims.

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